hello self, friends, and the world!
I created this blog 6 months ago as a space for me to document the development of "The Erasable Woman", my collection of poetry turned One Woman Performance Show Extravaganza. In true Shaunga-fashion, I wrote four entries and then stopped entirely.
I come back to this space, now August 2015, with some new commitments. I have been feeling slightly lost lately, confused, not sure what the next steps in my artistic journey should be. I know what I want - I want inspiration, mentorship, community, completion, discipline and accountability. I know I am ready to take my art to the next level - to go even deeper, to get even stronger, to feel even more alive and inspired through what I create and who I create it with. I just haven't been sure what to do, or how to get there.
If not for the magical mentorship and spiritual counselling I have been receiving from the most incredible being I met this year, Free Woman, (though we have met in many life times before this one...) I would still be floundering around confused. I realized that I have accomplished so much this year creatively - i have accomplished SO SO MUCH over the last few years. I have gone to incredible depths and strength in one year alone that many people do not visit in their whole lifetimes. I have probably close to 30 pieces in the last few years that I have created, performed and retired. That's what I do - create-perform-retire; create-perform-crash. Which is amazing in and of itself; I am proud of myself and in no way not acknowledging how far I've come.
But in this formula, lately I have been feeling like...something always feels unfinished, incomplete. Maybe even missing, unfulfilling and confusing.
I want to be able to leave something behind. I want to make my art accessible to more and more people and communities. I don't want my art to exist in one moment, and then have no tangible way to access it, or even remember what it was, once I'm finished performing. On top of that, there are so many pieces of writing that I've started and never finished; I have creations that have not fully come to light. There's a huge pile of art in my apartment, notebooks, body and brain that are all just kind of sitting there...I have the material for dozens of short stories, books of poetry, plays, dances, videos...and they're all like "HEY PAY ATTENTION TO ME, FINISH ME!" and I'm always kind of like...yehhh...i dunnoo....depression and self-doubt creep in and I avoid my genius.
So I come to this blog asking to give myself a healthy dose of structure, discipline and accountability. A place to document process, and also to look back on accomplishments - to see tangibly how things start, are created, expressed, released, completed and shared.
Additionally, I recently made the decision to turn down a pretty big opportunity to be a part of a year-long intensive performance training program that would have undoubtedly launched my art and career to all new levels and heights. But I could also see that the schedule and structure of this program was not in alignment with the needs of my body, health and other caregiving responsibilities (to myself and others). And shit if I haven't learned that lesson of burn out the hard way.
The truth is that this program is not set up to hold my overall healing journey. It might have been okay if I were in a place to surrender my journey to someone else's structure...but I have put in years of hard, dedicated heart work into building my life where healing, love, self-knowledge and self-respect is integrated in absolutely every decision I make, every detail of every day. Prioritizing this healing journey has not only served me well, it has saved my life in 2015, one of the toughest years I've gone through in a while. I can't abandon that now. My art is a huge part of how I offer healing to myself and others.
So I am certain that I can achieve or move toward the same results on my own than if I were part of a school's training program. For some people, for certain times in our life, being part of institutions or structured programs is the way to go - but they don't have to be the ONLY road toward success; they are not the only way to grow as an artist. Depending on who you are and where you're at, they may do more harm than good.
Given all of this, how to stay disciplined, motivated and accountable when you don't have anyone to answer to but yourself? That is why I am dedicating this space, and sharing it with others, to the intention of just showing up. That is why I will be reaching out to my friends, community and fellow working artists - who I am blessed, blessed, blessed, to know - and maybe figure out some structures to support and motivate one another.
My first priority in the next while will be this business of COMPLETION. Going through all my stuff and organizing a pathway for myself to finish the things that I have started. There's something about avoiding finishing projects...especially things that WANT to be done...that says a lot about my own fear, heartbreak and misery related to endings, break-ups and deaths. But in many ways death is a natural and ongoing part of life that I am learning how to honour and respect (for the sake of my mental health, if anything). I think if I can work more toward finishing art projects so they feel honoured and "complete," then maybe I will also have some more practise in dealing with endings in harder life stuff as well.
Enough Gemini Babble for now - see you soon - REALLY!
I created this blog 6 months ago as a space for me to document the development of "The Erasable Woman", my collection of poetry turned One Woman Performance Show Extravaganza. In true Shaunga-fashion, I wrote four entries and then stopped entirely.
I come back to this space, now August 2015, with some new commitments. I have been feeling slightly lost lately, confused, not sure what the next steps in my artistic journey should be. I know what I want - I want inspiration, mentorship, community, completion, discipline and accountability. I know I am ready to take my art to the next level - to go even deeper, to get even stronger, to feel even more alive and inspired through what I create and who I create it with. I just haven't been sure what to do, or how to get there.
If not for the magical mentorship and spiritual counselling I have been receiving from the most incredible being I met this year, Free Woman, (though we have met in many life times before this one...) I would still be floundering around confused. I realized that I have accomplished so much this year creatively - i have accomplished SO SO MUCH over the last few years. I have gone to incredible depths and strength in one year alone that many people do not visit in their whole lifetimes. I have probably close to 30 pieces in the last few years that I have created, performed and retired. That's what I do - create-perform-retire; create-perform-crash. Which is amazing in and of itself; I am proud of myself and in no way not acknowledging how far I've come.
But in this formula, lately I have been feeling like...something always feels unfinished, incomplete. Maybe even missing, unfulfilling and confusing.
I want to be able to leave something behind. I want to make my art accessible to more and more people and communities. I don't want my art to exist in one moment, and then have no tangible way to access it, or even remember what it was, once I'm finished performing. On top of that, there are so many pieces of writing that I've started and never finished; I have creations that have not fully come to light. There's a huge pile of art in my apartment, notebooks, body and brain that are all just kind of sitting there...I have the material for dozens of short stories, books of poetry, plays, dances, videos...and they're all like "HEY PAY ATTENTION TO ME, FINISH ME!" and I'm always kind of like...yehhh...i dunnoo....depression and self-doubt creep in and I avoid my genius.
So I come to this blog asking to give myself a healthy dose of structure, discipline and accountability. A place to document process, and also to look back on accomplishments - to see tangibly how things start, are created, expressed, released, completed and shared.
Additionally, I recently made the decision to turn down a pretty big opportunity to be a part of a year-long intensive performance training program that would have undoubtedly launched my art and career to all new levels and heights. But I could also see that the schedule and structure of this program was not in alignment with the needs of my body, health and other caregiving responsibilities (to myself and others). And shit if I haven't learned that lesson of burn out the hard way.
The truth is that this program is not set up to hold my overall healing journey. It might have been okay if I were in a place to surrender my journey to someone else's structure...but I have put in years of hard, dedicated heart work into building my life where healing, love, self-knowledge and self-respect is integrated in absolutely every decision I make, every detail of every day. Prioritizing this healing journey has not only served me well, it has saved my life in 2015, one of the toughest years I've gone through in a while. I can't abandon that now. My art is a huge part of how I offer healing to myself and others.
So I am certain that I can achieve or move toward the same results on my own than if I were part of a school's training program. For some people, for certain times in our life, being part of institutions or structured programs is the way to go - but they don't have to be the ONLY road toward success; they are not the only way to grow as an artist. Depending on who you are and where you're at, they may do more harm than good.
Given all of this, how to stay disciplined, motivated and accountable when you don't have anyone to answer to but yourself? That is why I am dedicating this space, and sharing it with others, to the intention of just showing up. That is why I will be reaching out to my friends, community and fellow working artists - who I am blessed, blessed, blessed, to know - and maybe figure out some structures to support and motivate one another.
My first priority in the next while will be this business of COMPLETION. Going through all my stuff and organizing a pathway for myself to finish the things that I have started. There's something about avoiding finishing projects...especially things that WANT to be done...that says a lot about my own fear, heartbreak and misery related to endings, break-ups and deaths. But in many ways death is a natural and ongoing part of life that I am learning how to honour and respect (for the sake of my mental health, if anything). I think if I can work more toward finishing art projects so they feel honoured and "complete," then maybe I will also have some more practise in dealing with endings in harder life stuff as well.
Enough Gemini Babble for now - see you soon - REALLY!